


Princely Virtues 2.0 (The Princess Brienne remix)

by LadyRhiyana



Series: Royalty!AU [2]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale elements, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Royalty, Born into different houses, F/M, Fluff and Humour
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-21
Updated: 2019-12-21
Packaged: 2021-02-26 01:22:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,998
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21885181
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyRhiyana/pseuds/LadyRhiyana
Summary: Five alternate universes featuring Princess!Brienne.
Relationships: Jaime Lannister/Brienne of Tarth
Series: Royalty!AU [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1576543
Comments: 24
Kudos: 167





	Princely Virtues 2.0 (The Princess Brienne remix)

**Author's Note:**

> In which the author has no impulse control whatsoever. Please enjoy five wild, wonderful, un-beta'd and completely self-indulgent AUs!
> 
> The first three paragraphs of Part 2 are very heavily paraphrased from "The World of Ice and Fire".

**

**One**

**

Brienne was a princess. 

It made many things difficult. 

What made it all the more difficult was the newness of it all. Had she been born to the life, she might have been more resigned to the inherent drawbacks; unfortunately she had only been a princess for two years, since her father had – reluctantly – overthrown the old king and taken his place. 

Before that, she had been plain ugly Brienne of Tarth, and she would never have dreamed of a life filled with paparazzi, cut-throat politics, the ever-present Kingsguard hovering in the background, and most of all, the Prime Minister’s son – Jaime Lannister. 

** 

Most days she tried to pretend that she was just another ordinary student at Oldtown University. She wore jeans and ironic t-shirts and looked just like all the other starving arts majors – save that she was taller, broader, and far less attractive.

She had friends, of a sort. Stammering Pod. Shy, gentle Sansa. A few carefully chosen others. It was difficult to tell, sometimes, whether people liked her for herself or because she was a princess. 

She also had Jaime, who despite – or because of – his youth was the Kingsguard assigned to protect her while she was at university. Far from the white-cloaked heroes of old, the Kingsguard nowadays were discreet and incognito; Jaime was undercover as his civilian self, pretending to be no more than a normal student – or as normal as Jaime Lannister, the son of Tywin Lannister and heir to Casterly Rock could ever be. 

Despite his best efforts, normality didn’t come into it. There really was no one else like him.

He was an arrogant, drawling, entitled posh git. He was so filthy rich he had no idea of the real world, and his lazy smile and cut-glass accent never failed to infuriate her. He took nothing seriously, held nothing sacred, and if she didn’t already know he was an elite bodyguard, she would never have believed it. 

She’d never known Jaime as one of her discreet, black-suited watchers – she only knew that he had golden hair and wicked green eyes, that he was a poor student, a strong swimmer and a skilled martial artist, and when he stripped off his shirt he was so hot that she couldn’t tear her eyes away. 

The chemistry between them was unbelievably hot, and while they fought and scratched and constantly sneered at each other, they fucked just as often and even more fiercely. 

Selmy and the others disapproved. Her father was concerned. _His_ father was sleekly complacent. 

But who cared, when she could be sure that Jaime, at least, knew that she was a princess and didn’t care a jot?

**

**Two**

**

The combined armies of the Westerlands and the Reach gathered to oppose Aegon Targaryen and his three sisters. They had an overwhelming superiority of numbers, but the Targaryen conquerors had dragons: the dragonlords soared above the battlefield, swooping and diving and breathing great gouts of fire until the great plain of golden wheat burned. 

Thousands of Westerlanders and men of the Reach died screaming. The King of Highgarden and all his sons perished, as did the King of the Rock, but Prince Jaime Lannister lived, riding through a wall of flame and smoke to safety when he saw the battle lost. 

Prince Jaime was captured the next day. The new King of the Rock laid his sword and crown at Aegon’s feet, bent the knee, and did him homage. And Aegon, true to his promises, lifted his beaten foe back to his feet and confirmed him in his lands and lordship, naming him Lord of Casterly Rock and Warden of the West. 

But it was not Aegon the Conqueror’s mercy and forbearance which won Lord Jaime Lannister’s loyalty, but the fierce strength and competence of Aegon’s third and youngest sister, Brienne – who had been the one to chase Lord Jaime down on her great dragon, Evenstar, and who had brought him back to her brother in chains.

Unlike her elder sisters Visenya and Rhaenys, Aegon had not taken Brienne to wife. Some said this was because Aegon felt three wives was too many; others, less kind, said that Brienne lacked the otherworldly beauty that marked the blood of Old Valyria, save for her deep blue-purple eyes. 

Whatever the reason, when Aegon raised Lord Jaime Lannister to his feet and did him honour, the Lord of Casterly Rock asked the Conqueror for one more boon: the hand of his youngest sister.

**

**Three**

**

Once upon a time, on the far-off island of Tarth, there was a – well, there was a princess. Tarth was a poor and not very powerful kingdom, and Princess Brienne spent all her time and effort working hard to help her people. She dressed not in silk and velvet but in leather and sturdy cloth; instead of long flowing gowns she wore mail and breeches, for the realm was always beset by pirates and she often had to lead the army herself. 

Her hands were rough and calloused and her face could not, even by the most generous standards, be called beautiful. But though she was a fearsome warrior she still had a kind heart and a gentle nature, and her people loved her and wished her well. 

One moonless night, as she was riding home sore and weary from yet another skirmish with pirates, Brienne stumbled into the world of Faerie. There, under a silver moon and unknown stars, she rode through an unfamiliar wood, drawn deeper and deeper by the sound of pounding drums, sweet-singing voices and unearthly music. 

Finally she reached the heart of the wood, and she saw pale, otherworldly lords and ladies dancing beneath the stars, their feet bare, silver flowers growing in the wake of their footsteps. For long hours, it seemed, she watched entranced, until a tall golden lord turned his gaze on her, standing frozen in the shadows – 

“Come, mortal,” he said, extending his hand to her and smiling, sharp and wicked as a knife. “Come and dance with me.” 

Her heart pounded in her chest. For a moment, all the warnings of her cruel septa rang in her ears, but they faded in the face of the golden lord’s smile. She took his hand, and he whirled her into the dance. 

All thought and memory faded. She knew nothing but the skirling music and the pounding rhythm of the drums and the leap of her blood in her veins, saw nothing but the golden lord and his green, green eyes. She danced, and danced, and danced, as the unfamiliar stars wheeled in the sky and the night faded into dawn. 

As the sun began to rise, the clearing slowly began to dissipate like smoke: the dancers fading into insubstantial ghosts and then vanishing altogether, the drums dying away and the music trailing into nothingness. The golden lord’s hand slipped through Brienne’s fingers and she cried out in protest, reaching for him again. 

In all her life, in all her years of uncomplaining hard work and service, she had never wanted anything for herself – nothing except this beautiful golden lord, elusive and impossible to hold, slipping away from her into the mist. 

“No,” she cried out, and with all her great heart and her powerful strength of will she reached for him again and caught his wrist – and held on, even as the sun rose and the world of Faerie vanished, leaving only the mortal world in all its earthy ordinariness. 

“No,” she breathed sadly, mourning the loss of wonder and enchantment and the return of the mundane.

She stood on the side of a hill, inside an ancient circle of weirwood stumps, the last remnants of a long-felled grove. In the distance she could hear the sounds of Tarth: the clinking of a blacksmith’s hammer, travellers shouting and wagons rumbling, and even the sound of bells from the harbour.

The sun was rising in a cloud-streaked sky. There was a cool breeze on her cheek, salt-tinged – 

There was a tug on her wrist. 

“You can let go now,” said the golden lord. 

_Never,_ thought Brienne. 

**

**Four**

**

“I don’t want to be a princess.” Brienne scowled down at the long blue satin gown and the gauzy veil. “Just look at this. Gender stereotyping at its worst.” 

“Well, I don’t particularly want to be a strapping peasant lad,” Jaime replied. He held up an artistically ripped and torn shirt and a pair of leather trousers and shuddered. “This is _not_ what the farmers on my father’s estates wear.” 

“Jaime,” Brienne sighed with indulgent fondness. He looked up at her, bemused. “Just – don’t ever change.”

“I’m afraid they’re the only costumes we have left, on such short notice,” the proprietor of the shop said apologetically. “Unless you want the Myrish maid and the Lyseni male concubine costumes?”

“No,” Brienne said hastily. “No, these will do, thank you.” 

**

**Five**

**

“You should enter the lists at Harrenhal,” Rhaegar said. 

Brienne only laughed. “Oh, if only I could,” she said impulsively. She stole a glance at her elder brother, slender and melancholy as ever, pale against the black and red of his tunic. He was dressed in mail, a sword belted at his side, though he was not well-suited to martial pursuits; Rhaegar had always been subject to strange dreams and fancies.

“I dreamed of you,” he said distantly. “The dragon must have three heads.” 

Brienne regarded him with a sinking heart. There was a distant, far-away look in his eyes. Whatever his gaze was fixed on now, it wasn’t the current unrest in the kingdom, or Lord Tywin Lannister’s increasing coldness, or their father’s spiralling descent into paranoia and madness.

“Rhaegar,” she said, “now is not the time for dusty prophecies. You must do something about Father. If his madness is not checked –”

“There’s a storm coming,” Rhaegar said solemnly. “I’ve dreamed of it. The Seven Kingdoms must be ready to meet it. The Prince that was Promised must arise.” 

She threw up her hands. “What dragon?” she demanded. “What prince, and what promise? What use is my entering the lists? I am betrothed to Robert Baratheon, and he will never let me bear arms.”

“Brienne,” her brother said. “I dreamed you were standing side by side with the Lannister boy.”

She gasped. How could he have – how could he have _possibly_ known? 

“You carried matching swords,” Rhaegar continued, “and you stood defiant against a darkness that would cover the whole world.”

He fixed his remote gaze on her. “The dragon must have three heads,” he said. “You must understand that, surely?” 

** 

She didn’t understand any of it. 

All she knew was that when Ser Arthur Dayne had introduced her to his young protégé Ser Jaime Lannister, the golden-haired knight had smiled and her foolish, foolish heart had leapt within her breast – 

** 

She entered the tourney as a mystery knight and carried all before her – even the knights of the Kingsguard, even Robert, even Rhaegar himself. 

When she pulled off her helm and the commons cheered and called her name, she saw that her betrothed was scowling, furious and embarrassed. But when she looked up to the crimson- and gold-draped Lannister box and caught ser Jaime’s eye, he smiled at her, and stood up and applauded. 

** 

They ran away together. 

It started a war. Not because Robert was in love with her, but because he was restless, furious and embarrassed. 

After Rhaegar’s death at the Trident, Lord Tywin, still the Hand of the King, crushed Robert’s rebellion with the same merciless ruthlessness he had shown at Castamere. By that time, alas, Aerys was dead – slain by person or persons unknown – and Lord Tywin assumed the regency for the infant prince Aegon.

When his men tracked Jaime and Brienne down to Dorne and brought them back to Casterly Rock, he embraced Brienne as a daughter. 

** 

(Years later, when Rhaegar’s storm descended on the North, Brienne and Jaime stood side by side against the darkness, wielding matching swords.)

**

**Author's Note:**

> Re: the existence of / implications for Jon in part 5: I leave this one up to your imagination.


End file.
